Interview with Brad McQuaid

EverQuest is quickly on its way to being the biggest massively multiplayer RPG on the net. So when I had a chance to sit down with Producer Brad McQuaid and talk to him about the game I wasn't about to pass up the opportunity. From the Expansion to Quests the interview has it all.

Over the recent July 4th long weekend I flew down to San Diego for a little vacation and had a chance to stop over at Verant Interactive's offices to interview Brad McQuaid regarding EverQuest. We sat down for what turned into an over hour long conversation on the expansion and the current state of EverQuest. I taped it all and am presenting the interview in a few parts, it's just too long to do in one go.

I'd never met Brad so it was nice to meet the man behind the game so to speak. We interviewed in his office, which was decorated with some concept art from the game, car posters, a stand-up video game machine, couch and other video game accouterments. Shon Damron, PR for EverQuest was there as well. We all sat down, I turned on the tape recorder and this is what happened. Oh by the way, there is a special offer for EverQuest fanatics at the end of today's section of the interview.

In the interests of brevity I've not made a word for word transcript of the conversation, I've cut out repetitive statements, etc. At the same time I've tried to keep the conversation true to exactly what was said.

Jason: Let's talk about the Expansion, The Ruins of Kunark. As I understand it, there will be one race added and one continent added (yep) that will be a level 50 and above kind of area.

Brad: Undecided at this point. We are building the levels now-- it's too early to decide the level spread now. I probably won't do that for another 6 to 7 months because I want to see where most people are on average in the game. So that we can serve the sort of demographic that is represented in the game and there are enough zones to serve those people. So I'm more than willing to raise the cap from 50 to whatever if I need to but it might not be needed at that time.

Jason: Besides the race, continent, new npcs, new armor, and weapons, and such will there be new skills for the different classes. For example Warriors get a new skill at 51.

Brad: If were going to break the level cap of 50 it would make sense to add additional skills. We may approach it differently, perhaps it only goes from 50 to 60 but it takes much longer to go from 50 to 51 than it takes to go from 49 to 50. And at each point perhaps you are called something different, maybe the Necromancer could be known as a Lich. But we haven't really flushed all of that out yet because it's too early.

Jason: When will it be released?

Brad: Q1 2000, we would like to release on the anniversary. March 16, 2000. But this far in advance we don't want to lock ourselves in, we are targeting Q1 2000.

Jason: What about ownership of property in the expansion, homes and such?

Brad: Features like that and even new skills in general will probably be added as a patch over time. The focus of the expansion is the addition of a playable race and a whole new continent to explore. And I really want people to understand that in terms of other features and things that is something that we will add onto the game through patches for free.

Jason: How many Zones? On the content.

Brad: I don't want to give out the specifics because if I say a number and we end up falling short people will be disappointed but it should be larger than 15 zones. Kunark is larger than Faydwer but not as large and Antonica

Jason: What is the background of Kunark?

Brad: The race are the lizardmen or Ixar and they used to have an entire empire that almost encompassed all of Kunark. But their empire has since crumbled and they are not at their glory right now. But they do have that empire as their history behind them.

Jason: Will they then start on the island or I heard a rumor that they will start in a revamped Temple of Cazic Thule?(Lizard men are there now for those of you that haven't been there)

Brad: The new lizard men player race are a relative of the more primitive lizard men on Antonica. They will start out in their own starting city located on Kunark They are neutral evil in nature.

Jason: Will there be a beta process?

Brad: Yes, a small closed beta to check out the balance of the zones, etc.

Jason: Okay, let's move onto some general EQ questions, it's been 3 and half months when do you think you will start to ramp up the GM\Guides roleplaying quests started in-house by living people.

Brad: They are in the process now, they have been going on for about 2 to 3 weeks now. Just the other night on the test server a GM summoned up an army of undead to surround the tower in Oasis. We started them out simple perhaps a Giant skeleton or something like that. We had one where a mad dwarf was running around the BB mountains attacking everyone and screaming incoherently someone finally figured out that he was cursed. They cancelled magic him and he was freed from the curse and thanked the person who figured it out and gave him a reward. We are ramping up the complexity as the players are getting used to the idea and honestly as the GM/Guides get used to it.

Jason: Do you have the manpower with 20 servers to do quests that are on every server for instance?

Brad: No, Probably very individual server kind of basis. I'm excited about that because it gives each server a kind of flavor. That's not to say there could never be a large plot that affects all the servers but mostly they will be individual to the servers.

Jason: Do you have the manpower to create quests on an ongoing basis? Is enough to create RP on a daily basis?

Brad: Yes I think it's reasonable to assume that we will have at least one dynamic quest per day per server.

Jason: Do you plan to increase this?

Brad: I think there will be more as the guide program fills out. It's a goal to increase the dynamic nature of the game.

Jason: Are you still adding static quests to the game?

Brad: Yes, we have several people that all they do all day long is add quests.

Jason: Okay if you are adding them why are some quests that were starter quest, I mean they came with the game are still broken. For example the monk headbands and sashes, you can't get the high level of headband because they just don't exist.

Brad: But you see that's not broken its just not there yet. There is a big difference there. For instance the monk quests that are there do work.

Jason: What I mean for instance the natural progress is to go up to the Purple headband, or sash but you can't get the purple sash because the quest isn't there and if you talk to the monk guildmaster he tells you they don't have anymore to give out.

Brad: Yea I don't consider those broken they are just not implemented.

Jason: I guess perhaps then the question is why are wholly new quests being added when the quests that came with the game aren't even fully implemented? The opinion of some players is that it's not a matter of not being implemented but that the game came out of the box broke.

Brad: I think that is definitely not the way to look at it. I think that is some players being used to single player games, where you buy the box and that is what you get with the game. We put in areas that don't exist yet, NPCs talking about things that don't exist yet. To me that makes sense it's a clue or indication of things to come. So if one of our game designers goes in and puts in the framework for a huge quest that will take him 6 months to complete and some of his NPCs talk about different aspects that aren't completed yet I don't consider that to be broken, but something to look forward to. And you will see all sorts of references to that in game.

Jason: What about quests for instance, and I know this has to be a bug, a quest when?.

Brad: Oh don't get me wrong, there are quests out there that are broken and we fix those as soon as we can. But I also need people to understand that it's a continual process, we are continually putting in new quests and going through revising old quests. For instance quests where we feel the reward is insufficient going back and making better rewards. It's a constant process. But since we aren't perfect people and we are adding to the game more bugs will be added. I kinda want people to understand that there will always be things like that by having a game that is never finished being made. It's a completely different mindset than a single player game.

Jason: Playing devil's advocate I think some player think that before you add even one new quest, implement all the quests that are mentioned out of the box. For instance back to the monks, before you add any new monk quests, fix the sashes and headbands.

Brad: But you see we aren't looking at it like that. Because the quest game designers sit down and look at it, they read email, read the boards, listen to the feedback and they look at the world. And they think sure there could be another 10 monk headbands and sash quests up to black or pooka dot right but over here in the Troll hometown there aren't nearly as many quests as in Qeynos. So they think am I going to finish up the monk quests which will never really be finished which I've already put in a month into or should I help the Shadow knights in Feerriot which have only had 2 weeks spent on them.

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